India

Suzlon agrees $1.97 billion debt plan

INDIA: Suzlon has agreed a deal with banks to restructure around $1.97 billion of debts as part of its corporate debt restructuring (CDR) procedure.

CDR is a process devised by State Bank of India to help major Indian companies facing liquidity issues to deal with their debts without the company going insolvent.

The deal does not apply to the still outstanding $209 million bond deal, which was due to be repaid last month and forced Suzlon to enter into CDR on 29 October.

At the time, Suzlon said it had offered to restructure its debts with a ten-year maturity period under the CDR mechanism. This would include a two-year moratorium on principal and interest payments.

The debt renegotiation will give the company "wriggle room" in order to fund operations and build new wind projects. Although Suzlon's core Indian market is relatively healthy, new projects tend to be built on a turnkey basis.

The debt talks were part of the company's move to use CDR, which needed to be approved by its banks. The next stage will involve regulatory approval, with the process expected to be fully approved by the end of Q1 2013.

Although Suzlon Group announced it had crossed the 20GW mark in terms of installations, much of this has come from German subsidiary Repower, whose funds are ringfenced.

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